Cyndi Burnett

Dr. Cyndi Burnett is an Assistant Professor at the International Center for Studies in Creativity at Buffalo State. She implements the Center’s efforts to “ignite creativity around the world,” and her work includes projects such as: developing online 3D creativity labs, connecting communities of creative thinkers via social media, and designing a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in everyday creativity (to be launched in early 2015!).

Prior to becoming an academic, Dr. Burnett was a professional actress. Having performed in many stage productions, she realized that she had developed a passionate interest in the underlying processes involved in creation. This realization led to her studying creativity at the ICSC and ultimately gaining her EdD in Curriculum, Teaching and Learning from the University of Toronto.

Her research interests include: understanding creativity in a hyper-connected world, holistic approaches to Creative Problem Solving, creative thinking in higher education, and the use of creative models and techniques in children. She was recently featured in an article in the New York Times titled, Creativity Becomes an Academic Discipline.

Creativity is an essential skill for the 21st Century that is innate in all people and can be nurtured. We constantly need new and better ideas for almost every aspect of our professional and personal lives. The goal of this course is to help you recognize, develop and act upon the creativity that you already possess. We will accomplish this using three methods: b aware, b inspired, and b creative.

MOOCs – Massive Open Online Courses – enable students around the world to take university courses online. This guide, by the instructors of edX’s most successful MOOC in 2013-2014, Principles of Written English (based on both enrollments and rate of completion), advises current and future students how to get the most out of their online study, covering areas such as what types of courses are offered and who offers them, what resources students need, how to register, how to work effectively with other students, how to interact with professors and staff, and how to handle assignments. This second edition offers a new chapter on how to stay motivated. This book is suitable for both native and non-native speakers of English, and is applicable to MOOC classes on any subject (and indeed, for just about any type of online study).